Sustainable Finance & Socially Responsible Investment

Cargill has made its first ever sustainable premium payment by electronic transfer to cocoa farmers in Ghana. Just over 10,000 farmers are benefiting from the 2 million GHS mobile payments made by Cargill in partnership with its customers through the Cargill Cocoa Promise, Cargill’s commitment to improving the livelihoods of farmers and communities that will secure a thriving cocoa sector for generations to come.

About 70 to 80 percent of money donated in the wake of a disaster goes to immediate relief efforts. While those efforts are important, ensuring long-term support is crucial to effectively helping affected communities rebuild and fully recover.

Since publishing the original collective impact article in 2011, the majority of FSG’s work supporting cross-sector collaboration has been focused on communities or regions in the U.S.—like supporting the Early Matters coalition in improving early childhood education in Houston, Texas, or working with leaders across New York State to transform their juvenile justice system—and we have explored how to find the right geographic scope for a collective impact initiative.

Today, nearly 800 business leaders from over 70 countries joined leaders from civil society, Government and the United Nations at the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit 2017. Convened during the 72nd Regular Session of UN General Assembly, the Summit focused on driving responsible business action and partnerships to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Paris Climate Agreement.

Sustainable Brands® recently unveiled program details and speaker lineup for New Metrics '17, scheduled for November 13 -15 in Philadelphia, PA. Gathering together over 350 business executives, sustainability strategists and financial leaders from across the globe, New Metrics focuses on cutting-edge ideas and tools for quantifying previously-ignored risks, costs and revenue potential associated with sustainability impacts.

America’s Charities, which inspires employees and organizations to support causes they care about, is pleased to welcome the Sesame Street Yellow Feather Fund to its alliance of 140+ nonprofit organizations.

Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK), the world's largest leisure travel company, marked the official beginning of construction for the first of its seven next-generation cruise ships that will be fully-powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG) with a keel laying ceremony at Seatrade Europe in Hamburg.

The cause of promoting corporate “long-termism”--the creation and communication of multi-year corporate strategies that include financial, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors--received yet another significant boost with the announcement by CECP: The CEO Force for Good that Vanguard CEO Bill McNabb will join the Board of Directors at CECP and serve as Co-Chair of the organization’s Strategic Investor Initiative (SII).

The European Union (EU) has sweeping reforms of financial markets coming into force January 3, 2018. They will affect Wall Street firms in many ways, covering all transactions of EU securities wherever traded worldwide. Whether the firm is on the buy-side: portfolio managers, mutual funds, institutional investors, or on the sell-side: broker-dealers, investment advisors, researchers, consultants, MIFID II will affect business models, research, trading, reporting and order execution.

How does a company or organization develop and sustain successful public-private partnerships to achieve large-scale impact?

Determine when, and how long, to engage: Successful public-private partnership programs are strategic multi-year, multi-phased engagements, not single transactions. It’s important to provide flexibility in the level and length of engagement. But, to have large-scale impact, a core set of partners should be committed for the long-term.